GeoffShackelford.com

A large, energetic man of marked intelligence and imagination, Macdonald had great ambition and an ego the size of the fourteenth hole on the Old Course at St. Andrews…Although he did not attain this grandiose ambition and come to be regarded as the father of American golf, no one of his generation had a comparable influence on the development of the game in this country. HERBERT WARREN WIND on C.B. MACDONALD

KARL RAVECH: Baseball is a statistic driven sport and you get bunkers like this and the numbers are going to go down. Are the players concerned about those things?

JACK NICKLAUS: I never was, but maybe some of these guys are, I have no idea. But I don't see why they would be. A good bunker player is going to have a good sand save record. But I think the guy who can putt those four, five, six footers is the guy who is good at sand saves. It's not necessarily about how good of a bunker player you are.

IAN BAKER FINCH: The best bunker players on Tour are around 60 %, up and downs, and the average is just under 50%, so a little less than half is the up and down percentage.

JACK NICKLAUS: Well, if the Tour continues to do what we're doing here, which I think they will, they say they are going to, ah, then obviously the sand save percentage will go down.

PETER OOSTERHUIS: The average today is just over 34% from sand.

IAN BAKER FINCH: That's just today.

PETER OOSTERHUIS: Yes, 34.2%.

JACK NICKLAUS: I'll tell you what else will happen too, is that your driving accuracy will improve greatly on the Tour with bunkers like this in the fairway.

IAN BAKER FINCH: Because they'll have to take a club to avoid the bunkers and think a bit more about it.

JACK NICKLAUS: Yes, they're going to have to put the ball in play and I think it's going to bring the game back to level of...just a very simple thing, just a rake, brings the game back to where it's a little more controllable for the course and the guys putting on a tournament.

KARL RAVECH: What else? I mean, could you make rough longer during non-major events, what else can you do?

JACK NICKLAUS: Well, you know, Karl what I've always felt is that the recovery shot is one of the most beautiful shots in the game of golf and the norm has been now to make the rough higher, the fairways narrower and to me that makes the game more boring. Because all you do is hit it in the rough and chop it out. And the guys with the golf equipment today drive the ball must straighter so they can have narrower fairways. But when they miss they don't mind missing in the bunkers. But now if we make the bunkers such that you don't want to put it in the bunker, then you're going to start thinking, do we take teh driver out of your hand or do we leave in your hand to do what we're going to do. So I think it's only a plus for the game of golf. Equipment has made game much easier game, particularly for the pros. And I think there are ways to combat that and we haven't combatted that up until this time. Hopefully this will be used effectively in the future.

And this was a little later on...

JACK NICKLAUS: I want to try and equalize the game from power. I think that the game has gotten...it was about 80% shotmaking and 20% power when I played, power has always been an advantage and always will be. But I don't like to see it be 80% power and about 20% shotmaking. I think it's gotten too much where power takes over and you'd like to be able to get it a little more in balance. It takes guys that don't hit the ball nine miles a better opportunity to play the golf tournament and to be on par the guy who's a Tiger Woods...

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When in Belfast the Titanic Museum is well worth the time. A far more diverse and interesting presentation than expected. Fascinating on many levels, from architecture, engineering and Belfast shipping history to the dreaded ending and search for the ship. Just seeing the scale of its assembly site and what went into its launch is worth the admission price. The Eric Kuhne designed building is pretty incredible too.

A fun and unforgettable week in Portrush ended on a rainy note, but didn’t dampen the week in a splendid town and region. A few of my favorite images from the week. Thanks to @baileychambleegc and @conorrankin for the pic assistance

Final day @theopen 2019. Here is an old Irish Amateur shot found by @hainesy76 and yesterday of @patrickcantlay on the world famous Calamity Corner. Today’s pin is dead center in the green. #16thhole #theopen #hscolt